Canadian Soccer Opinion

Friday, April 29, 2011

Over the past forty years going back to the early years of the North American Soccer League, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have usually been able to field some sort of pro soccer side almost every summer in a top tier league either in a North American or Canadian context. One of the key problems faced by Canadian soccer has always been moving beyond those three cities where the sport is now reasonably firmly entrenched as a spectator sport into the other cities which are successfully able to sustain pro teams in the context of the CFL and NHL. Edmonton has always been the city outside of the big three where pro soccer has appeared to be most likely to make the breakthrough so if FC Edmonton can't make a go of it in the North American Soccer League this summer despite the recent progress in an MLS context many people will probably conclude that soccer remains a niche interest followed primarily by the recent immigrant demographic, which is concentrated to a large extent in the GTA, lower mainland BC and Montreal.

Pro soccer first surfaced in Edmonton during the Pele boom years of the late 70s with a semi-pro side called the Black Gold. They were soon replaced by an NASL team called the Edmonton Drillers after the Oilers' owner Peter Pocklington bought the Oakland Stompers franchise from Milan Mandaric and moved it to Alberta. The Drillers lasted for four seasons at times drawing crowds of up to 10,000 but were one of the franchises to quickly fall by the wayside as the recession of the early 80s and inflated player salaries due to competition from the MISL slowly and the unsustainable spending of the New York Cosmos led to the NASL's relatively rapid death spiral. Along the way the NASL's indoor title was won in 1981, however, and subsequently Pocklington resurrected the Drillers in the context of the now defunct National Professional Soccer League, which eventually folded due to an unsustainable economic model and competition for top North American players from the newly emerged MLS but at times drew highly encouraging paid attendances of between 5,000 and 10,000. In contrast post-original NASL outdoor teams like the Brickmen and Aviators of the original CSL and USL-D1 struggled to make the same sort of headway in terms of fan support and soon folded.

Edmonton Drillers opening game

So why is there reason to believe that things will be different this time? One of the key problems in the past has been that while teams based in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal can always find a number of good players locally who are willing and able to compete against elite teams from across North America for relatively poor salaries, it has been more difficult to field a competitive team on that sort of basis in an Alberta context based on players from leagues like the AMSL due to the smaller population and more mainstream demographics. The positive start made to the season with two wins and one loss during a three game road trip is therefore very encouraging given there are 14 players from Alberta on the roster. Even the 0-3 loss to Toronto FC in the NCC disguises the fact that goal scoring chances were being created even with ten men much to the displeasure of Aron Winter. When the Aviators played in USL-D1 in 2004 they were up against dominant franchises from Vancouver, Seattle and Portland in the Western Conference that have now moved onto MLS. The Brickmen arguably faced a similar problem with regards to the Vancouver 86ers in the context of the original CSL. The recent expansion of the first division of the game in North America to take in most of the traditional hotbeds of the sport may well have created a second division environment where not just FC Edmonton but future entries from cities like Hamilton, Ottawa and Quebec City can easily field teams that are competitive enough to sustain fan interest without having to break the bank by having to bring almost an entire roster in from outside the local area.

The other reason for optimism is the ownership. The Fath brothers appear to be in it for the long haul and have talked about building a soccer specific stadium in the next three to five years. Last summer FC Edmonton played a series of exhibition games after a relatively high profile Canadian born Dutch coach called Dwight Lodeweges put together a roster of players based on a $1 million salary budget. Other ownership groups might have been scared away when attendance at high profile games against Colo Colo and Portsmouth failed to meet expectations but the Fath brothers have stuck with their soccer investment and have continued to make the right moves to field a winning team. Dwight Lodeweges moved onto JEF United in Japan in the off season but was soon replaced by another experienced coach with an Eredivisie level playing career, Harry Sinkgraven. The team recently went on an extended preseason training camp in Arizona, to try to ensure a winning start and a good first impression.

FC Edmonton Drillers 0 Toronto FC 3

Will the fans get behind the team this time? That remains the $64,000 question. The crowd of 5,781 in this week's Nutrilite Canadian Championship game has already resulted in negativity in the local media from a prominent local sports columnist. There were extenuating circumstances, however, like a 6pm kick off time to fit the needs of the broadcaster looking for ratings in southern Ontario, inclement weather and competition for interest from two NHL playoff series which went all the way to game seven. A crowd of that size doesn't look good in the context of the 60,000 seat Commonwealth Stadium even if it's moderately encouraging from a soccer standpoint given what has happened in the past in similar circumstances. Starting on Sunday against the Montreal Impact, the regular season games are going to be played at the far smaller 3,500 seat Foote Field on the University of Alberta campus. Regardless of the spin that will be probably be placed on things by Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun even just being able to approach capacity in a stadium of that size would be a huge achievement for a D2 soccer franchise. If FC Edmonton can successfully achieve that this summer and field a competitive D2 level side based on a roster drawn primarily from Alberta, Canadian soccer will have passed an important litmus test. There will be reason to believe that the sport can finally be made to work in business terms in about half a dozen smaller cities from coast to coast and that a key missing link in the player development system between U18 youth academy level and MLS senior rosters can be filled on that basis in a manner that will provide opportunities for several dozen young Canadian players to earn a living in a fully pro environment while chasing the dream of a lucrative pro soccer career either overseas or closer to home in MLS.

Toronto Lynx vs Vancouver Whitecaps in 2000

It's easy to forget that a decade or so ago crowds of around 1500 to 2000 were very much the norm in Toronto and Montreal at a D2 level and that a heavy emphasis often had to be placed on one off youth soccer group sales to even achieve that. If FC Edmonton can lay the foundation this summer by replicating that level of interest, a decade or so of patient investment by the Fath brothers could easily lead to bigger and better things down the road if a soccer specific stadium similar to Stade Saputo in Montreal can be built in a suitable location. There will be people more used to watching the best overseas pro leagues on cable who will find the D2 level of soccer available locally difficult to take seriously at first but that was very much the case in Vancouver and Toronto as well in the not too distant past. FC Edmonton will initially have to be marketed towards hardcore soccer fan and youth soccer groups sales. It will be interesting to see to what extent the youth soccer registration boom of the last twenty years has changed the landscape relative to the era when players like the late Justin Fashanu and David Norman played for the Brickmen in the original CSL before acres of empty seats. I'm cautiously optimistic things will turn out for the best this time.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

In the upcoming 2011 season twenty two Canadian teams will compete in two different league structures sanctioned at the D3 or D4 level by national soccer associations (one by the CSA in the case of the Canadian Soccer League (CSL) and one by the USSF in the case of the Premier Development League (PDL)) in addition to the four fully pro teams in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal from MLS and the NASL that compete for CONCACAF Champions League entry in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship.

As will be described below there is considerable uncertainty over the future direction of both these leagues based on boardroom politics over league sanctioning issues. An eleven month moratorium on entry into USSF sanctioned leagues below the MLS level was announced late last year by Victor Montagliani of the CSA. More recently it has also emerged that the CSL may soon face competition from a rival OSA sanctioned “non-amateur” league. The decisions that will be made over the next twelve months on these issues could help to shape the development of Canadian soccer over the next few decades.

The Premier Development League is the name the USL operates under at tier four level within the USSF’s league structure. PDL consists of nine regional divisions containing 64 teams in 29 of the lower 48 states of the USA, three of the ten provinces of Canada and on the island of Bermuda. As the name implies there is a strong focus developing on younger players under the age of twenty three. Although PDL is often referred to as being an amateur league this is slightly misleading. In reality players do get paid, it just has to be done in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize NCAA scholarship eligibility, since NCAA scholarship players make up a large proportion of the players. Some teams accomplish this by avoiding using these players completely and through a program called PDL Pro can be openly semi-professional. In a Canadian context, the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency program already falls into this category. In the context of most PDL teams players often get paid for coaching youth players in a summer camp environment and this enables a training environment similar to a full-time pro team albeit in a short 16 game regular season plus playoffs format running from May to the middle of August.

WSA Winnipeg commercial

Despite the CSA’s 11 month moratorium on new Canadian entries, two new teams have subsequently emerged in Winnipeg and Hamilton. In the former case the paperwork already seems to have been processed, while in the latter being an addition to an existing USL franchise in the women’s W League appears to have provided a loophole. In Ontario the four teams based in the southern part of the province will be playing schedules that are heavily skewed towards the other three southern Ontario teams. This may be the shape of things to come if/when the moratorium is lifted. With 9 Canadian teams already in place, a critical mass is arguably being approached in numbers terms where Canadian only divisions and a separate Canadian branding may become viable options, although it should be noted that several of the teams including those based in Victoria, Winnipeg, London, Hamilton and Ottawa have been reported to have aspirations to eventually move up to either USL Pro or the NASL at the D3 or D2 level within the USSF’s league structure. In the context of both Hamilton and Ottawa the local CFL ownership groups have announced plans for fully pro level soccer franchises as part of the deals put together for publicly funded stadium upgrades in both cities.

The off season has seen considerable changes behind the scenes at the Canadian Soccer League after the first full season operating as a CSA sanctioned D3 league rather than as an Ontario provincial league. The league’s commissioner, Dominic Di Gironimo, stepped down late last year after the league failed to secure further expansion into Quebec and to launch a new regional division in British Columbia amid reports that there had been a difference of opinion between the commissioner and the league’s “equity owners” over the future direction of the league. Two of last season’s expansion franchises, Milltown FC and Hamilton Croatia, who had participated as “playing members” of the league in 2010, subsequently left and are currently involved in a bid to launch a rival OSA sanctioned ‘non-amateur’ league that would move away from the franchise system that has been a feature of the CSL and its predecessors for decades to a more mainstream (in FIFA terms) promotion and relegation model. Several other existing CSL and/or conditional 2011 expansion teams appear to have initially been interested in moving in this direction but sanctioning could not be obtained in time for the 2011 season. The concept of the new league appears to have been well received at the OSA board level so there may be big changes ahead by the time the 2012 season rolls around especially with the recent revelation that a new semi-pro provincial league may also be launched in Quebec.

It's Called Football Podcast - March 1st 2011

{info about the new OSA sanctioned semi-pro league is in an interview with Bruce Henderson and starts about 22:50}

The CSL has added new teams in Mississauga, Windsor and Ottawa. The Mississauga team is associated with a top youth club, the Erin Mills Eagles, while three other conditional entries in Kitchener, Pickering and Ottawa that were announced by DiGironimo at the league’s 2010 championship game have fallen by the wayside amid rumours that they may try to launch in 2012 instead. The new Windsor team was announced early this year after DiGironimo’s departure, while the Ottawa entry that has emerged will be run by an investor, who had previously been interested in a USL-D1 expansion team at the city’s main downtown baseball stadium. It will be interesting to see if the Windsor and Ottawa entries are sufficiently well funded this time around to overcome the problems associated with the excessive demands placed on semi-pro players with regular 9 to 5 jobs of repeated long distance travel to the GTA and beyond over a May to October season, which have led to the demise of franchises based in these cities in the past.

Pro soccer team in Hamilton's future

Until the issues surrounding the CSA’s current moratorium on new entries into USSF sanctioned leagues below the MLS level and the proposed OSA sanctioned “non-amateur” league have been resolved it remains to be seen how these two strands within the fabric of Canadian soccer will develop in the years ahead and whether the current widespread interest in investing in soccer will result in genuine growth as a spectator sport beyond the soon to be three MLS teams in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. As I have argued previously in an earlier blog entry there is a clear and obvious niche for both a U-23 development league operating under a PDL type format and for open age semi-pro leagues in the major cities operating in a manner similar to the state leagues in Australian cities like Sydney and Melbourne, which appears to be the model being pursued by the proposed OSA sanctioned league.

Hopefully the moratorium will be lifted later this year and PDL will continue to expand into Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec and the Maritimes, since in cities that are relatively remote from other major population centres, as is the case with Thunder Bay, the CSL open age semi-pro approach would be completely impractical due to the travel distances involved. The use of student athletes similar to what happens in junior hockey is the most viable economic model. Meanwhile, in the major cities, hopefully, the emergence of a new OSA sanctioned “non-amateur” league will finally help to nudge Canadian soccer beyond the anachronistic separation of amateur and semi-pro clubs in elite competition, which was ditched in most other countries 40 years ago when the Olympics movement moved away promoting the virtues of amateur as opposed to professional competition.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Well the first portion of preseason is over with what appeared to be a set of respectable performances against top clubs from Belgrade and Zagreb although it is tough to tell for sure when there is no way to watch the entire games and all you see are edited highlight clips. So far roster changes have been few and far between, probably because Earl Cochrane was very efficient at clearing out the deadwood that had accumulated under the old regime (perhaps to the point of being a tad overzealous in the case of Amadou Sanyang?). The implications of the decision to jettison Chad Barrett is definitely worth examining closely, however.

Chad Barrett misses

It was highly improbable that Chad Barrett was ever going to be able to play the Ajax 4-3-3 style because his game revolves around workrate over technique and constantly trying to find open space in behind the last defender rather than reading the game well enough to know when to drop deep to try to set up a wall pass for a central midfielder. Winter would perhaps do well to ponder why a player of such limited technical ability would be sought after by a coach like Bruce Arena and by a franchise like the LA Galaxy despite the prohibitively expensive contract. The answer is clearly that it is not easy to replace a player like Edson Buddle in an MLS context and a player that can provide you with about 10 goals a season is a definite asset even if he misses a barrow load of easy chances along the way. Instead of being pragmatic like that there is clearly a desire rightly or wrongly on Winter's part like Preki before him to be able to immediately field a team that plays his favoured style even if that leads to problems in the short term given the restrictions on recruitment imposed by MLS's unique set of roster regulations.

Gerry Dobson interviews Juergen Klinsmann

Part of Juergen Klinnsman's remit was to pinpoint the Canadian style of play and find a coach who could build the club to consistently deliver that style in the years ahead. Whether that has been achieved remains to be seen. I think what has emerged out of that process is a coach who can deliver the sort of soccer that Juergen Klinsmann most respects based on a big name that MLSE staff can market successfully to meet targets on ticket sales and sponsorships as they jockey for position in the post-Richard Peddie environment at MLSE. I'm not convinced that TFC fans are actually naturally predisposed towards the Dutch style of play. The fan favourites that have emerged over the years such as Danny Dichio, Dan Gargan and at least when on goalscoring form Chad Barrett have tended to be players of relatively limited technical ability who battle hard in a stereotypical Canadian hockey player sort of way, while in contrast the fan base never really warmed to more skillful players like Amado Guevara. As much as some people would probably hate to admit it a direct and high tempo British style 4-4-2 is what many people are probably most comfortable with watching in entertainment terms even if it is very much dated nowadays tactically and the more deliberate and technical Dutch style is going to take a lot of getting used to for some people.

Paul Mariner's first ever goal for Ipswich Town

So what lies ahead? Hopefully Winter will be able to use his contacts within the European game to find suitable replacements for the many obvious voids within the roster but the reality remains that this season could soon turn really ugly if Barrett is not effectively replaced, Dwayne De Rosario downs tools to a significant extent because of his ongoing contract dispute and Julian De Guzman continues to seriously under perform as the team's marquee designated player. Past mistakes in player personnel decisions can not be undone overnight. If TFC are well short of a playoff spot by late August odds on the suits at MLSE will drop Winter without the slightest compunction just as they fired Preki. The last thing somebody like Tom Anselmi or Paul Beirne will need at that point is a 60% season ticket renewal rate because clambering up the greasy pole in corporate promotion terms in the aftermath of Richard Peddie's retirement will be very much the name of the game and selling tickets and attracting lucrative sponsorship deals in the here and now is what drives that not what may or may not happen two or three seasons from now if an Ajax style footballing culture finally starts to take root. Look for a combination of Paul Mariner and Danny Dichio swinging things back to a more direct British style of play to be the plan B used to try to head off that particular possibility at the pass if the need arises. Danny Dichio is being kept in the wings for a reason.

Behind the scenes at the new management team's first press conference

So what can break a cycle emerging of footballing decisions being driven primarily by short-term marketing considerations? The answer clearly is the emergence of a genuinely knowledgeable fan base, who don't expect an instant transformation every time a coaching change is made and can appreciate that the competitive parity of MLS means there is no shortcut to success by reaching for the chequebook Chelsea style. It's time for the core fan base to decide whether or not they really buy into this vision of TFC being the next Ajax based on a production line of players coming through from the Academy team. If the answer is yes (and so far the body language of players interviewed in the in house video clips from Turkey suggests that things are going very well in that regard) then there needs to be a willingness on the part of supporters to do just that, support, by giving Aaron Winter and Bob de Klerk the two seasons that Sigi Schmid had at the Columbus Crew to turn things around and build a dominant franchise based on a willingness to go through some short term pain for long term gain if things don't go well initially. That means that the online post-game hysteria after every loss that has an effect on the tone of subsequent mainstream media coverage needs to be actively combated this summer by people, who can see the bigger picture. If the vibe that surrounds TFC tends to be that the fan base are comfortable with the long term strategic vision shown by Tom Anselmi and Paul Beirne in assembling the new management team and have faith that things will eventually turn around there will be less danger of damaging kneejerk executive decisions in the build up to season ticket renewal season if it turns out that Aaron Winter and Paul Mariner are not able to assemble all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle the first time around.